


There's a Price to Pay, It's Running Through My Veins

by thegoodthebadandthenerdy



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, and voilà!, anyway i threw some stuff i wanted in here, i havent read the books so this is moreso movie, theyre dumb i love them, this fits nowhere in canon for anything, took out some stuff i liked but didnt fit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 23:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15807195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodthebadandthenerdy/pseuds/thegoodthebadandthenerdy
Summary: The girl afraid of falling had jumped in heart first.





	There's a Price to Pay, It's Running Through My Veins

**Author's Note:**

> this is...something! dont go into it w any canon in mind just let the covinsky carry you through
> 
> title from empress by morningsiders !

"Just trust me."

The words, despite his admittedly good intention, inspired everything _but_ trust in Lara Jean's heart.

But his eyes were doing that little crinkle thing at the edges, and his smile was soft, and who was she to deny him his last request on their last day, huh? She wasn't a monster, that's for sure, so with an over-exaggerated huff she tugged herself into the passenger seat of the steady-rumbling vehicle in front of her.

"Where to?" she asked as she clipped her seat belt across her.

"It's a surprise?" he tried, shoulders quirking slightly as if that were explanation enough.

"Fine," she relented. Easy. _Too easily,_ the logical part of her brain supplied. _Too easily, too familiar, too comfortable._

He tossed his arm across the back of her seat and pushed, giving him leverage to crane his neck to check behind him. She got a whiff of his shampoo as he his head flung, and for a second, her eyes shut, and she gently inhaled.

Her eyes popped back open when she heard, "-'cause we're not running over anyone today," mumbled under his breath. And there he was with a sly, but kind grin gracing his lips.

Cheeks pinked, but lips pulled into a smile, Lara Jean settled into the familiar passenger seat of Peter Kavinsky's car for the last time.

The drive wasn't all that long, maybe fifteen minutes, but every second felt like a small infinity. The music was low between them, filling up every space their words should have been filling.

Trees started coming into view, familiar, gnarled ones that brought back memories she'd long tried to hide. 

Of a little girl and a little boy playing pirates, the former the captain, the latter the first mate; tree trunk the mast and limbs the everything in between.

Or spaceship. Or adventurer. Or just racing, up, then back down.

And eventually, it became a girl and a boy, neither little nor big, sitting under those trees, trading movie talk and snacks and laughter.

And then, for a while, it was just a girl. Romance book in hand.

But mostly, it was just a boy. Looking for a friend, but knowing better than to think he'd actually find her.

Lara Jean didn't go to the park often.

Peter Kavinsky never stopped.

\---

"Do you think," Peter began, standing in front of their old pirate ship, their old stomping ground. "Our initials are still in the root?"

"I think that's how permanently carving your initials into something works."

He dropped into a crouch, using capable hands to brush leaves and dirt away from a spot Lara Jean couldn't forget, but thought he'd have purged from himself.

After a tense second, one that splintered at the edges, that cracked and cracked like the imaginary mast in the imaginary hurricanes on the high sea with each breath, he turned a blinding grin over his shoulder and directed it at her.

"C'mere, Covey," he called, and she obliged. 

Crouched beside him, she peered around his shoulder to find what she knew would be there.

_Cpt. L. J._

_1M P. K._

She couldn't help her smile.

"I still don't think that's how you abbreviate first mate," she informed him.

"Looks cool, though."

"It looks like a failed iteration of the brand of hooks I hang on my wall."

He considered that for a moment, before nodding. "Good one."

\---

"I don't think this is a good idea," she said, already in the middle of enacting said idea.

"Just trust me, Covey."

"You keep saying that," she said around a grunt, saddle shoe luckily finding a new grip on the treebark. "But it's not working."

"Obviously it is," he called from the ground, looking up at her. "Because there you are."

Bark was digging almost-painfully into her hands, and thighs, but there she was, on their old branch, high above the ground, and low below the sky. Middle world.

"You coming up, slow poke?" she teased, holding on for dear life as she leaned forward ever-so-slightly, hair falling around her face in a sheet.

He squinted against the sun, one eye shut, hair curling on his forehead, mouth tugged into a softer smile as he presumably snapped a picture of her.

As he pushed it back into his pocket, he gave her a quick thumbs up before scrambling up the tree.

"This is legal, right?" she asked as he settled nect to her, each of them looking at all the park-goers.

"Ah," he replied intelligently.

"Need to know basis, got it."

\---

"Do you remember that fight we had when we were nine because you said a cloud looked like a puppy and I said it looked like a shark?" This was Lara Jean.

She figured that if he could dredge up days past, so could she.

"Yeah," he replied with a breathy laugh. "We didn't talk for a week."

"But you still waited with me everyday after school until Margot came across from the middle school and walk me home because you knew I didn't like waiting by myself."

"I was so mad at you, but I couldn't leave you," he said. Then, quietly, "I still can't."

\---

After an incident with a bird and an almost broken arm, they vacated the tree. Lara Jean's sides still hurt from laughing.

Unsurprisingly, Peter came prepared, which was how they ended up on the ground, a blanket under them, and nothing but blue skies and puffy clouds above.

Their heads were by one another, with their bodies going in opposite directions. Mostly, she kept her eyes ahead. Mostly, he tried to act like he wasn't looking.

\---

"Do you regret it, Lara Jean?"

Her heartbeat caught and stumbled over the way he said her name, so quiet and unsure.

She'd thought, maybe, they'd end up here. It was a question even she had, after all. Did she? Did _he_? And maybe this couldn't end until all the cards were on the table. 

Because it still has to end. He'd gotten what he wanted, and she'd done the same. Josh was but a distant plague on the fringes of her vision, and Gen was trying harder than hard to get back with him.

Contract fulfilled, deal done.

But.

"No."

It was a truth she hadn't wanted to admit. But she didn't, not a second of it, and that was scarier than whatever came next.

She rolled her head to the side to face him. Her palms itchy where they sat clasped pleasantly across her stomach.

"Do you, Peter Kavinsky?"

He rolled to meet her, eyes soft. "Yeah."

It struck her like a pillow to the face. Somehow, she'd seen it coming, and somehow, it still hurt.

"Stop thinking so loud," he murmured to her, rolling onto his side to face her. "I don't regret you, Lara Jean. Not for a second.

"I regret that I lied to you, and that none of this was real to you," he explained, eyes drifting shut. "I regret that you could doubt anything I ever said to you because I was too much of a coward to speak up."

"Lied?" It seemed to be the only word she could get out of her mouth.

"I told you that I was flattered, but that we couldn't-" he huffed a breath through his nose. "I was scared, I think. And then you told me in the diner that day, that you didn't like me anymore."

She finally unclasped her hand, but she was still unsure of what to do, where to go. 

"Peter," she began, reaching a hand for him, letting her palm rest on his cheek.

He smiled, just a little, eyes still closed, and she could feel him press against her hand, the smallest amount of pressure, but still there.

"I'm in love with you, Lara Jean."

She'd always been under the impression secrets, if revealed, were whispered. But his voice was steady, there was no shame or embarrassment. Just regret for not having said it sooner.

Peter Kavinsky had no shame in loving her.

She had no shame in loving Peter Kavinsky.

And just like that, it clicked. She loved him - no, was in love with him. The girl afraid of falling had jumped in heart first.

"I like-like you, too," she sputtered out quickly, not wanting to chicken out. Not wanting to be ruled by her fears, even if it was just for this second. It was only after it was there between them that she realized exactly what she'd said.

He cracked one eye open and looked up at her, his lips pulled into a blinding smile. "Like-like?" he repeated, soft teasing in his tone.

Her cheeks pinked ever-so-slightly, but she still found it in herself to reach down and flick his nose. "Yeah."

"Good," he said. "That's good."

For a second they just looked at one another in full silence, before breaking it in the same way. With words that were beating around the bush of "Can I kiss you?"

Mixing their laughter together, they both discreetly brushed sweaty palms against jeans and leaned in.

Lara Jean had read a… _lot_ of romance novels. So dubbed by Kitty as "kissy books." Allinall she thought she had a pretty good idea of how this was supposed to go.

But she didn't, not really.

Because he was there, under her hand, curls tickling at her fingertips, lips against hers. Better than an earth-shattering spin the bottle kiss, better than a breathless track kiss. Better than any daydream. Because they were kissing because they wanted to, and there was no one else that it mattered to but them.

\---

"So," she trailed an hour later, tapping her fingers lightly against the window sill of his car, familiar surroundings passing on their way back to her house.

"Hm?" he asked, sparing her a small glance vefore focusing back on the road.

"We're, y'know," she tried. "Real dating."

"Yeah, Covey, we're real dating," he agreed.

Neither of them had stopped smiling by the time they pulled up in front of her house.

**Author's Note:**

> im on tumblr @wlwshehulk ! hmu w some covinsky prompts please im begging you


End file.
